Bank of Kigali’s digital product, BK Quick disbursed Rwf 7.1B as of June 2019 according to the bank’s financial statement as of June 2019. The digital service allows customers to apply for and access loans rapidly and save money through auto/fixed saving and also digital transactions by E-banking online with a BK App. The services facilitate loan amounts of up to Rwf500,000, with customers having a provision to choose a repayment period of their liking, ranging from one to six months. This is one of the bank’s digital efforts in a bid to increase financial inclusion, ease credit access and reach out to more clients. The bank in the first half of the year served over 315000 retail clients and about 24,000 corporate clients. Retail client deposits grew to 165.1B in the first half of the year. The bank also this year introduced Digital Migration Agents in all its branches countrywide to enable clients to migrate to digital channels, such as the application and internet banking, among others. The bank is in the process of rolling out a Digital Transformation Roadmap to deliver new products and experiences, especially to underserved segments of the economy and key population demographics like the youth and the unbanked. The digital platforms and services include driving uptake of debit and credit cards, use of our mobile applications, internet banking platforms among other digital platforms. To further advance the ambitions, Bank of Kigali in July selected Temenos, a banking software company based in Geneva, Switzerland, to power its digital transformation journey as it continues to expand regionally and realize its financial inclusion objectives. This is with an aim to gain business agility and dramatically lower the cost of deployment. With the new system, the bank could deliver innovative products and services specifically to underserved segments of the economy and key population demographics like the youth and the unbanked. Bank of Kigali plans to grow the number of customers to one million by 2021, from the over 400,000 the bank currently has, according to the lender’s projections The new system has capabilities and functions such as advanced analytics, reporting, risk and compliance modules among others. In a recent press conference, Bank of Kigali Chief Financial Officer Nathalie Mpaka said that the second half of the year, the financial institution will maintain its digitization drive which has also been reducing the cost of operations. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
